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Monday, March 1, 2010

Chapter 5 ~ "Don; We Are Moving!"

The truck could not go fast enough driving home…not giving one thought to the reason I why I was running errands; why I was in that area or what I was hauling home. The only thing on my mind was our new home and how I was going to tell Don about it. This, after all, was not something I wanted to tell him about over the phone. It had to be done with finesse. It had to be done with emotion. It had to be done with excitement!

“Don!” I screamed before I stepped through the door. “We are moving!”Well, THAT was full of finesse! I thought to myself.

With eyes are large as saucers, he listened to me describe the property and what had happened. I spoke as much with my hands as I did using my mouth pacing all about the floor. I could not stand still. Adrenaline rushed through my system and I hoped it was spilling over into his.

“So what do you think?” I asked.

Dead silence fell over the kitchen as he backed his head up into his shoulders. I think he was waiting for me to pass out. He stood there with a sandwich in his hands ..in the same position he had been in when I rushed into the house nearly 20 minutes earlier.

“Do you want to go and see it?” I asked breaking the silence.“Now?” he responded.

“Well, I want to go now and if we left right now, we would still have about 20 or 30 minutes of daylight left.”

“Don’t you have a big chest in the back of the truck?” he said still trying to absorb everything I had just laid on him.

“Oh yeah – that…” I looked down biting my lip.

“Can’t we go Sunday – on my day off?” He said still gripping his sandwich.

“Yeah.” I was disappointed and could not hide it in my voice. “Okay, I guess that would be better and I can call and find out more about it too.”

I fished the tiny piece of paper out of my pocket where I had scribbled down the number posted on the for sale sign as I walked over to the phone. By the time the dialed number was ringing, I had a pen in hand slanted down at a note pad.

A 10 minute conversation revealed every detail that was going to be legally necessary, but not mandatory in my world. That particular track of land was roughly 28 acres, mostly pasture and although it had an elevation slope of about 100 feet, none of it was in the flood plain. The attentive sales person was providing information faster than I could request it. This new development was a small grouping of ranches no less than 15 acres and most closer to 50 created from an 850 acre ranch owned by one man that was sold upon his death. They were in the process of creating a fishing lake, there were going to be horse trails and blah blah blah… Little did he know that I was sold the minute he told me the land was still for sale…at any cost!

It seemed to take forever for the days to pass until Sunday when Don and I would return so that I could introduce him to our next home. I made list after list of things to be done before we placed our house on the market. I made several calls to friends requesting Real Estate Agent referrals and actually started to clean out the attic for a garage sale. My family surely thought that I had gone mad.

* * * * *

“There it is!” I said pointing to the short gravel drive. Don pulled the truck up to the gate and slowly got out. I noticed his eyes squinting as he looked around.“Come on. We have to jump this gate.” I encouraged.“Okay..okay, just wait for me!” he said.

He could not have been moving more slowly, or so it seemed to me at the time. I grabbed his hand and we headed up to the top of the hill. Just as we reached the highest point the breeze blew and stroked my face. To me it felt like a greeting from someone I adored. I inhaled deeply and closed my eyes. Still clutching Don’s hand, I prayed that he too felt the connection. Opening my eyes, I looked over at him. He was looking back and forth. He turned around and looked over at the wooded area.

“Is that where you saw the three trees that grew together? Do you know where the property line is? Do you know how far back it goes? What are the building restrictions? How much did you say it is? ..and how many acres is this?”